OK.....so , I got the last parts I needed today from newegg to finish my first ever build. Haven't been able to game in years , as I'm still playing around on an old AMD 4000+ , GTX260 ( was a 7800GTX ) , 2GB ram and ol' Windows XP. My new system is all brand new from the ground up and I started gathering parts for it about 6 months ago. I'm down to just the video card.....then she should be up and running.

Probably a couple weeks out before I'll be able to get a new card , and it's definitely going to be a 7970. I'm looking at a couple of the upper end 3GB and 6GB cards.

Question : I'm buying one for now , but sometime later this winter I'll be picking up another one ( even though it's overkill )....so I can CFX two of the exact same cards together. Should I get the 3GB version card or should I say Screw it and go for the 6GB card?

Now that i think about it....I may just get the 6GB card and be done with it. By the time I want to CFX these things....something new will be right around the corner I would want anyways....I think?

The 6GB Sapphire would set you back a full $150 more than the 3GB XFX. I just can't see that as possibly a logical choice. 3GB is still a ton of VRAM for basically any resolution (I assume you have a 1080p or 1440p display)...hell, even the pair of GTX470s (1.25GB) in my main rig will blow basically anything out of the water.

I was using a 4200+ with a Radeon 4870 for the longest time and people were telling me I was bottlenecking my card quite a bit, so no doubt you were bottlenecking yours quite a bit as the two are comparable.

Ion : I was wanting something in the newer tech for sure. I didn't want to go back and pick something up like a couple 470's because I would already be at my 2 card limit of what I wanted to do. Besides.....them 4xx Nvidia cards are power hungry and run warm. I love Nvidia....but this time around I'm going AMD.

Reason why....was I read this morning about the new "AMD Catalyst 12.11 Performance Analysis" report......and them giving you 3 new free games and a 4th at 20% off....and you can sell them as well. It's $170.00 worth of games a person could sell if they wanted to. So that knocks a $470.00 card down to $300.00 if a person wanted to do it.....to me that is just to good of a deal to pass up.

Hence the reason why I would want to pick up a second 7970 before the end of the year......it would set me up in graphics power for a good couple years i think.

Ion : I was wanting something in the newer tech for sure. I didn't want to go back and pick something up like a couple 470's because I would already be at my 2 card limit of what I wanted to do. Besides.....them 4xx Nvidia cards are power hungry and run warm. I love Nvidia....but this time around I'm going AMD.

Reason why....was I read this morning about the new "AMD Catalyst 12.11 Performance Analysis" report......and them giving you 3 new free games and a 4th at 20% off....and you can sell them as well. It's $170.00 worth of games a person could sell if they wanted to. So that knocks a $470.00 card down to $300.00 if a person wanted to do it.....to me that is just to good of a deal to pass up.

Hence the reason why I would want to pick up a second 7970 before the end of the year......it would set me up in graphics power for a good couple years i think.

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Oh, I'm absolutely not encouraging you to get a GTX4xx card. Given what exists now, that would be lunacy. I was just using them as an example to point out that even 3GB of VRAM was more than enough

The Sapphire Vapor-X cards are very solid--I think you'd be happy with that for a long time to come

-2560x1600 or lower resolution, 3Gb VRAM isn't necessary.
-If you want to game in Windowed mode, and plan to get another card later, then use Nvidia (Crossfire doesn't work in windowed mode).
-Special custom color profiles or settings for your monitor do not take affect in fullscreen. They do work in windowed, though as above, only SLI works in windowed.

This is why I went with the GTX680 this time around.
I wanted to get a single card solution for a while ( had 6970 crossfire previously, was concerned about heat, noise, future proof, etc.) - glad I did.
I knew I'd go multi card again in the future, and I really enjoy my color profiles and windowed mode for ease of access - which will require Nvidia.

Reason why....was I read this morning about the new "AMD Catalyst 12.11 Performance Analysis" report......and them giving you 3 new free games and a 4th at 20% off....and you can sell them as well. It's $170.00 worth of games a person could sell if they wanted to. So that knocks a $470.00 card down to $300.00 if a person wanted to do it.....to me that is just to good of a deal to pass up.

Hence the reason why I would want to pick up a second 7970 before the end of the year......it would set me up in graphics power for a good couple years i think.

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Good decision. The game bundle is just awesome. Also what is your monitor resolution. For 1080p a single HD 7970 or HD 7950 is enough.

As far as gaming "out of Windows".....how does one do that? I've always just had an icon placed on my desk....I push it.....then play the game. Isn't that gaming in windows?

I wanted to take advantage of the deal AMD has going. I love the Nvidia cards , but right now with this bundle I don't think you can beat the AMD cards.

Weather it's a 7950 or 7970.....sooner or later they will be on water , so my quest searching for a card just got a little narrower. Which means I guess I need to stick with a "Reference design" card. I will be gaming in 1920 X 1080....it's what my Asus 27" monitor supports.

I know two cards is overkill for now.....I just wanted to make sure they were both the exact same card.....so later down the road I have a better chance of selling them as a set.

I really wanted one of the Sapphire card's , but since then I found out they were non-reference....and I wouldn't be able to get any water blocks for them. I "think" this XFX may be reference , but I'm not sure as of yet. >>> XFX Double D FX797GTDFC Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition...

If I go the AMD route .....I definitely want the Ghz Edition cards IF they are reference.....which I don't know if they are? and IF i am going to stick with a single card it still needs to be reference for the idea of putting it on water later.

Do any of you guys know if the XFX above is a reference card? I''ll also be looking into the 7950 cards as well....as a CFX set of those may be a good idea as well.

The 6GB Sapphire would set you back a full $150 more than the 3GB XFX. I just can't see that as possibly a logical choice. 3GB is still a ton of VRAM for basically any resolution (I assume you have a 1080p or 1440p display)...hell, even the pair of GTX470s (1.25GB) in my main rig will blow basically anything out of the water.

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I wasn't aware that resolution was a VRAM issue. I figured VRAM had more to do with texture sizes, and other objects loaded into the memory.

I wasn't aware that resolution was a VRAM issue. I figured VRAM had more to do with texture sizes, and other objects loaded into the memory.

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Texture sizes and objects certainly do have a tangible impact. However, if you have a 2560x1600 display, that's 4.096 million pixels of information that has to be stored. If your display is 1920x1080 that's 2.07 million. Or if you have a shitty laptop display, 1366x768, then there are 1.0498 million pixels. Consequently, the higher resolution, the more "stuff" the graphics card has to be able to store. This is why the 768MB GTX460 is fine for lower resolutions, but changing nothing else other than upping the resolution to 1080p works better on the 1GB card (or 512mb vs 1GB on the HD4870).

As far as gaming "out of Windows".....how does one do that? I've always just had an icon placed on my desk....I push it.....then play the game. Isn't that gaming in windows?

I wanted to take advantage of the deal AMD has going. I love the Nvidia cards , but right now with this bundle I don't think you can beat the AMD cards.

Weather it's a 7950 or 7970.....sooner or later they will be on water , so my quest searching for a card just got a little narrower. Which means I guess I need to stick with a "Reference design" card. I will be gaming in 1920 X 1080....it's what my Asus 27" monitor supports.

I know two cards is overkill for now.....I just wanted to make sure they were both the exact same card.....so later down the road I have a better chance of selling them as a set.

I really wanted one of the Sapphire card's , but since then I found out they were non-reference....and I wouldn't be able to get any water blocks for them. I "think" this XFX may be reference , but I'm not sure as of yet. >>> XFX Double D FX797GTDFC Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition...

If I go the AMD route .....I definitely want the Ghz Edition cards IF they are reference.....which I don't know if they are? and IF i am going to stick with a single card it still needs to be reference for the idea of putting it on water later.

Do any of you guys know if the XFX above is a reference card? I''ll also be looking into the 7950 cards as well....as a CFX set of those may be a good idea as well.

If youre comfortable with overclocking, I'd say there's not much difference in going with the ghz edition since the reference 7970 will overclock well. I'm running 2 7970s which are reference and watercooled, and they run very well, used to play at 1920.1080 but now at 2560.1440, no complaints. If you can find a cheap used reference, that would be a great choice too.

And with the crossfire and window mode thing, if you're running a game in windowed mode (not full screen), crossfire doesn't work. Normally you always play full screen so it shouldn't affect you much. I'm not sure why you would want to do that anyway, maybe for some special purpose or other.

Weather it's a 7950 or 7970.....sooner or later they will be on water , so my quest searching for a card just got a little narrower. Which means I guess I need to stick with a "Reference design" card. I will be gaming in 1920 X 1080....it's what my Asus 27" monitor supports.

I know two cards is overkill for now.....I just wanted to make sure they were both the exact same card.....so later down the road I have a better chance of selling them as a set.

If I go the AMD route .....I definitely want the Ghz Edition cards IF they are reference.....which I don't know if they are? and IF i am going to stick with a single card it still needs to be reference for the idea of putting it on water later.

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For 1080p monitor going HD 7950 CF is a waste of money. HD 7950 with overclocking will max almost every game out there and run at 60+ fps.

If youre comfortable with overclocking, I'd say there's not much difference in going with the ghz edition since the reference 7970 will overclock well. I'm running 2 7970s which are reference and watercooled, and they run very well, used to play at 1920.1080 but now at 2560.1440, no complaints. If you can find a cheap used reference, that would be a great choice too.

And with the crossfire and window mode thing, if you're running a game in windowed mode (not full screen), crossfire doesn't work. Normally you always play full screen so it shouldn't affect you much. I'm not sure why you would want to do that anyway, maybe for some special purpose or other.

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Well....Overclocking is definitely something I want to learn and i am planning on doing it with whatever card(s) I plan on getting.

Since I'm a little ( not a little...a lot! ) out of the loop on pretty much everything when it comes to computers......with the AMD cards , do the "Ghz Edition " cards OC better than the reference cards......or are the Ghz cards just pre-overclocked reference cards from the factory? Is the hardware the same?

I may just decide to get one 7970 and put a water block on that if they are performing that well. I will be playing everything at the regular 1920 X 1080 ( for now )......but I think I may end up picking up a couple extra monitors and take advantage of the eyefinity stuff. That was another reason why I was thinking of getting two cards. Just looking to the future a little bit with this build.

Well....Overclocking is definitely something I want to learn and i am planning on doing it with whatever card(s) I plan on getting.

Since I'm a little ( not a little...a lot! ) out of the loop on pretty much everything when it comes to computers......with the AMD cards , do the "Ghz Edition " cards OC better than the reference cards......or are the Ghz cards just pre-overclocked reference cards from the factory? Is the hardware the same?

I may just decide to get one 7970 and put a water block on that if they are performing that well. I will be playing everything at the regular 1920 X 1080 ( for now )......but I think I may end up picking up a couple extra monitors and take advantage of the eyefinity stuff. That was another reason why I was thinking of getting two cards. Just looking to the future a little bit with this build.

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The following is taken from leditreviews:

At first glance the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition (XT2) video card looks identical to the Radeon HD 7970 (XT1), but fear not it is pretty much the same card. AMD has basically just tweaked what is under the hood a bit and is releasing a new card. Most of the changes have been done in the vBIOS, but there are also a few minor component changes as well. AMD did not want to discuss what component changes were done, but assured us 100% that there were physical changes done and not just all software changes.

Since I haven't seen any 7970 NOT overclock to the GHz clocks and beyond, I'd say it's not really that big of a deal. However, it does come factory overclocked so you don't have to mention that. My cards overclock to 1100 core without voltage adjustment, so I'd say they're fine.

I would suggest a 7970 and watercool it, since that's what many of us have here, and it's been great thus far! It'll be perfect for 1920x1080

Since I haven't seen any 7970 overclock to the GHz clocks and beyond, I'd say it's not really that big of a deal. However, it does come factory overclocked so you don't have to mention that. My cards overclock to 1100 core without voltage adjustment, so I'd say they're fine.

I would suggest a 7970 and watercool it, since that's what many of us have here, and it's been great thus far! It'll be perfect for 1920x1080

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Thanks for all your input man....it's really appreciated. I think I may just take your advice and get a good 7970 and water cool it when the time comes. I think it will do me just fine for a while , and when the time comes when I need more graphics power.....i'll just pick up another 7970 or get whatever new generation card is out.

Do you have any preference on what brands I should be looking at?

Phusius.....Thanks for the info man...and great score! I think? Since I haven't bench tested anything in years....I'm not sure how good that really is.

Thanks for all your input man....it's really appreciated. I think I may just take your advice and get a good 7970 and water cool it when the time comes. I think it will do me just fine for a while , and when the time comes when I need more graphics power.....i'll just pick up another 7970 or get whatever new generation card is out.

Do you have any preference on what brands I should be looking at?

Phusius.....Thanks for the info man...and great score! I think? Since I haven't bench tested anything in years....I'm not sure how good that really is.

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Only 56 other people have scored that high with a 7950... so yes, its very good.

Thanks for all your input man....it's really appreciated. I think I may just take your advice and get a good 7970 and water cool it when the time comes. I think it will do me just fine for a while , and when the time comes when I need more graphics power.....i'll just pick up another 7970 or get whatever new generation card is out.

Do you have any preference on what brands I should be looking at?

Phusius.....Thanks for the info man...and great score! I think? Since I haven't bench tested anything in years....I'm not sure how good that really is.

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I did edit my post with bold, i meant to say that I had not seen a 7970 unable to overclock to the ghz clocks and beyond, meaning that they all do. I sort of goofed that up, sorry.

I have ASUS and Sapphire, and they both work fine. Just ran a 3DMark 11 of P16166. I had to RMA my Sapphire once, and they replaced it in no time, new card returned to me in like 11-12 calender days, wihoo

I've had several in the past: XFX, Gigabyte, Sapphire, ASUS - no real issues. Some say to stay away from Visiontek and Diamond, possibly for customer service reason, but as I've never had them, I can't comment on them.

I'd say go for wherever the deal is! All reference cards are basically the same anyway, shop for the best deal!

As far as gaming "out of Windows".....how does one do that? I've always just had an icon placed on my desk....I push it.....then play the game. Isn't that gaming in windows?

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Are you referring to full screen vs windowed? If so, I am speaking about what's called windowed mode. In most games the graphics options allow you to use full screen, full screen window, or windowed mode. Windowed mode makes the program drag-able (like say your Explorer window). It also means that you can move the mouse cursor outside of the window to do things simultaneously in the background, like browse the internet.

Have you ever accidentally hit ALT+ENTER on the keyboard and your game does a resizing? You just put it into windowed mode. Some programs allow the ALT+ENTER as a shortcut to windowed mode.
When in full screen, you have to ALT+TAB to get back to the desktop, and often that can crash or degrade the programs performance(shouldn't, but it does). So windowed mode is a better alternative and as I said before, it means you keep your color profiling. Unfortunately Crossfire doesn't work in window mode, so you lose one card's performance entirely.

Weather it's a 7950 or 7970.....sooner or later they will be on water , so my quest searching for a card just got a little narrower. Which means I guess I need to stick with a "Reference design" card. I will be gaming in 1920 X 1080....it's what my Asus 27" monitor supports.

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I always advise reference cards, yet why does that matter in relation to liquid cooling - you mean you don't need to spend the extra money on upgraded fan versions?